Turkey Vultures

Interesting visitor the other morning – a Turkey Vulture! Each spring and fall nearly 40,000 of these critters migrate through here to points south, some as far as Northern Venuzuela. I am just fascinated by so many of them at one time. I was taking a picture of a group of them spiraling up the thermals, when my hubby said “you might want to be careful “looking up”! Yikes! I forgot about that! Anyway, here’s the picture – not very good, they were so high up it looked like black pepper specks on a blue table cloth. (Click on picture for larger yet blurry image) They roost in the big trees around the corner from us along Old Town Road. It is SO creepy – by October most of the leaves are off the trees, but there are so many of them that when you first come around the corner the trees appear to be fully leafed out again… then you realize that the leaves are black and they weren’t there yesterday! One year we hiked across our defunct golf course, and under the big trees there was a blanket of enourmous vulture feathers. Another year I noticed one lone vulture who didn’t migrate. This poor bird somehow spent the entire winter perched on a big boulder outcropping high above Old Town Road. Must’ve relied on the daily roadkill of birds, ground squirrels, and skunks. Occasionally I’d see it on a lower branch of the nearby tree, and by spring it had moved up a branch at a time and then I did see it flying around with a couple large flight feathers missing from one wing. Amazing. I’m guessing the one on our low fence might be in a similar situation.